We’re now approximately almost two days away from the official beginning of hockey season – at least for the Devils and Sabres – and while I don’t remember there being any official roster announcement, you can pretty much tell what the final roster will or should be based on the twenty-six players who traveled to Prague. I assume there’s a bigger taxi squad because of the nature of this being an overseas trip and being next to impossible to ‘call anyone up’ if guys get injured this week. If you were going to boil this down to the likely 23-man roster for the home opener next week it likely wouldn’t include third goalie Nico Daws, either Nolan Foote or Shane Bowers on the fifth line, and either Colton White or Nick DeSimone on the fourth pairing.
Among the rest, there really are no surprises although at least there’s promising news per GM Tom Fitzgerald’s latest update on the status of Brett Pesce, indicating he would likely be ready for the home opener next Thursday. He didn’t make the trip overseas to focus on his rehab but at least he should be in the lineup when the team returns to the States, unlike Luke Hughes – who Fitz indicated was still approximately 5-7 weeks away. Hughes’ absence has at least opened the door for rookie preseason standout Seamus Casey to get a long look to begin the season.
Might as well segue into the defense portion of the season preview – it’s certainly a vastly different defense than the one we ended last season with given the additions of Casey, Brenden Dillon in free agency, Jonathan Kovacevic in trade and the return to action of Dougie Hamilton after missing the majority of the 2023-24 season with a torn pectoral muscle. Dillon should add some size and physical presence we’ve clearly lacked on the blueline for years. Kovacevic is also a big boy but is probably more of a stay-at-home type who analytics seem to have pegged as a good buy-low opportunity. Pesce is also a stay-at-home type who should help on the PK once he settles in the lineup. Casey will hopefully add more of the speed and quickness we will miss without Luke early in the season.
Not counting Dougie, our only returning starters from last year are Jonas Siegenthaler (who hopefully will rebound from a poor year) and second-year standout Simon Nemec, who should take on more responsibility in all phases of the game. Clearly though, Dougie’s the man to watch and the one we most need this year. For all our other issues last season – and god knows I’ve harped on them all – it’s not an accident the power play looked toothless last year once he went on the shelf, and the offense as a whole suffered. You can’t take a 22-goal, 74-point defenseman out of the lineup and not feel any impact, and the domino effect of his loss probably didn’t help everyone else who was still here. After all, where would the Devils have been in the 2023 playoffs without inarguably the most important goal of that postseason, with the team down 2-0 in their first-round series with the Rangers?
Of course, even an improved defense won’t matter as much if the goaltending doesn’t also improve. Other than 2022-23 where we got miraculous surges from Vitek Vanecek in the regular season and Akira Schmid in the playoffs, the goaltending throughout Fitz’s tenure has been consistently poor and/or injury prone, to be blunt. Both Vitek and Schmid imploded last year, and other than a brief spurt by Daws the Devils never really found any consistent goaltending from anywhere until it was too late. Sadly, last year has been more the norm in between the pipes than the exception.
Clearly feeling the heat after a disappointing 2023-24, Fitz overhauled the goaltending position up and down the roster. After bringing in Jake Allen via trade late last season to be a short-term backup, he finally reeled in long-rumored target Jacob Markstrom to be the primary goaltender for the next two seasons. Vanecek was offloaded late last season, followed by Schmid in the offseason as the organization – at least in the nearer term – is probably hoping for one of Daws or fellow AHL goalie Isaac Poulter to take the reins after the current vets leave. For now though, obviously Markstrom’s the man to watch and there’ll be pressure on him to produce.
Sidenote: I get a kick out of Cory being the one doing analysis of this trade on the NHL Network (the irony not being lost on me that the last truly reliable long-term goalie the Devils had was Cory himself, before his own injuries), and his comments were more than fair although clearly Fitz wanted a stopgap and not an expensive solution to begin with. For better or worse, they do believe in the young goalies in their system long-term and hope to have cheaper solutions going forward, not just with Daws or Poulter but also potentially with both kids they drafted this year, who granted are a ways off themselves. Clearly those two will get the first crack at the backup job next year when Allen’s contract runs out and perhaps more when Markstrom’s deal is up in two years. All that said – if Markstrom doesn’t produce now, Fitz isn’t gonna be the one potentially reaping the benefits of whatever Daws or Poulter give the organization going forward.
In theory, the forwards were always going to be the spot that had the least turnover this offseason with all the remaking Fitz was doing on the blueline, in net – and also with the coaching, which I’ll get to in a moment. That doesn’t mean there were no changes up front though. With the necessitated exile of Mike McLeod midway though last season, dealing off Tyler Toffoli at the deadline and binning off Alex Holtz this offseason, there were at least a couple of spots available for newcomers. He brought back former Devils Stefan Noesen and Tomas Tatar to be role players in the top nine and brought in Paul Cotter from Vegas to solidify the fourth line, if not play higher in the lineup. Clearly Fitz’s comments after trading for the latter indicate he might be looked at in that capacity but until I actually see it, I’ll just consider it over the top hype. For the moment, at least it seems like he’s a good locker room guy if nothing else.
Unlike with imports who’ve never played here, you pretty much know what you’re getting from Tatar (only a year removed from being a nice little role player on the Devils’ 2022-23 record-setting team) and Noesen – who was a feel good reclamation story on the Devils’ surprise 2017-2018 playoff team before bouncing around the league a while, then resurfacing in Carolina the last two years where he solidified his place back in the NHL as a solid bottom six player. You also know what you’re getting from guys like Curtis Lazar and Nathan Bastian, though the latter clearly isn’t the physical force he used to be and perhaps it’s time for a younger, cheaper option there. Maybe a guy like Nolan Foote finally emerges? His career’s been a bit derailed by injuries but hopefully he stays healthy long enough to get a real shot this time around. He’s likely to start the season as the 13th forward with Kurtis MacDermid also hanging around for goon/locker room purposes. Camp tryout Kevin Labanc might also factor into the final roster when it’s all said and done, but without a deal he wasn’t taken overseas.
Overall, we do need more from our back six this year than we got last year, and that includes returning guys like Ondrej Palat and Erik Haula, particularly Palat who struggled last year on the ice with just eleven goals and 31 points in 71 games and in a season where the team looked like they needed more leadership, those two should have been a big part of providing that and seemingly weren’t. Fitz also clearly tried to remake the back six around the edges, getting rid of guys like Holtz who didn’t fit that mold for Cotter who does fit his vision of a back six with more grit.
All that said, the season’s ultimately going to hinge a lot more on our key four forwards up front plus hopefully a return to form from Dawson Mercer, who suffered an odd junior slump last year. People usually call struggling in the second year of your career a sophomore slump, but in Mercer’s case his sophomore year he put up 27 goals and 56 points with a +22, before plummeting to 33 points and a -26 last year in his de facto junior season. With his RFA contract situation out of the way, that could help facilitate a bounceback to something closer to his first two seasons, when he looked like a potential core piece going forward.
While Mercer having a personal resurgence could be a key to an overall team resurgence, they’re clearly going to need their big four up front to stay healthy and produce. After a first full season in New Jersey where he was injured and out of position on the third line, hopefully Timo Meier plays like a fish back in water this season. Health shouldn’t be an issue for the moment, and he’s back on the right side in the top six where he should be. Even with all of that, you saw some signs of the old Timo resurfacing in New Jersey late last season, mostly after Toffoli’s trade opened up a RW spot in the top six that Timo could slide back into.
Health is also key for our two franchise centers…Jack Hughes was playing hurt (and seemingly distracted) last year – though he still put up 74 points in 62 games during his so-called off year. While fellow former #1 overall pivot Nico Hischier has for the most part managed to avoid the injury bug lately, he’s also missed his share of games in the past and doesn’t exactly shy away from contact so to a degree you’d like to see him pick his spots better…but of course he wouldn’t be Nico if he did. Maybe Nico can take some heart from fellow core piece Jesper Bratt, who’s played in all 82 games the last two seasons while improving his numbers every year – including 83 points last year – and bulking up enough to not completely shy away from contact.
Finally, we get to arguably the biggest change of all this season – the coaching staff. Out are both Lindy Ruff and Travis Green, who’ve both landed on their feet getting other jobs, the former we’ll see in two days as he’s returned to the Sabres’ bench with his career seemingly coming full circle. Whatever you may think of both men, changes were clearly needed after the team stagnated and went backwards last season. New coach Sheldon Keefe brings a proven track record of getting the most out of his roster and winning in Toronto, albeit almost entirely in the regular season. It’s still early in his career so time will tell if he’s the next Bruce Boudreau or if he and the Devils both take that next step in the postseason together. At least Keefe should bring some more structure to the team on the ice, as it seemed like the previous system here was either too complicated or too flawed to ever work long-term, especially after teams figured us out following our breakout 2022-23.
Early returns aren’t overly promising after the team concluded a sloppy 1-5 preseason – with the only win coming when Utica played Hartford in our next to last preseason game with the Rangers on Monday. Not that preseason record means jack after last year when we went undefeated in the exhibition season, but it does seem like there’s a long way to go in terms of team chemistry with the new system. That, combined with our defensive injuries in camp could lead to a rocky start.
Beyond that, I’m not really making any predictions on this season. I hope we’re at least back in the playoffs, by virtue of talent we should at least be in the playoff hunt more this year than we were last year but if that doesn’t pan out, then likely even more changes will be made this offseason that could be even more seismic than this offseason’s bucket list of changes were. It would be nice not to go 0-2 overseas though, especially in a potential troll moment against our fired coach. That’s my micro concern…my macro concern being at least let’s see a team that competes on a more game-to-game basis with discipline and organization, which we clearly did not see last year. Hopefully Friday will be the start of putting to bed all wounds from one of the most disappointing seasons in franchise history and moving forward.
In case you were wondering about the times for the first two games, Friday’s opener will be at 1 PM EST, and Saturday’s second game will be 10 AM EST (as if it were overseas soccer!). Both games should be on the NHL Network if you have that. If not, then I guess you’re stuck with Devils Network Radio – not that being compelled to listen to Matt and Chico is a bad thing though!
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